Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-09-18
HUNTING KU-KLUX.
BY RICHMOND WALKEf.

The following article from The
American Magazine, an illustrated
monthly, published by The American
Magazine Company, box 1872 Pearl
street, New York, has been handed
to us by friend, with II request that
we publish the same as campaign
document.
Our friend informs us that he him
self halls from Livingston, Alabama,
where the Ku-Klux hunter made his
investigations. The same town OF
Livingston has sent II large delegation
to California. Samuel w. Inge, the
first United States District Attorney
for California, and Judge Joe Baldwin
and United States Circuit Judge
"Sandy" Baldwin, Andrew Glassell,
A. B. Chapman, Judge Hutton, the
Gerbers, Thorntons, Winstons Of San
Gabriel, and many others who have
made their mark in this State, were
from Livingston or its immediate vi
cinity. A number of the characters
in Baldwin's "Flush Times" and the
theatre of their "doings," were of and
at Livingston. "Samuel Hele" was
Samuel Hale, brother of United
States Senator John p Hale, of New
Hampshire; "Cave Burton" was sup
posed to be Charles Eugene Bayard
Strobe, somewhat noted in California.
They we're both residents of Living
ston. Tom Ochiltree was born there.
The description of the tavern is true to
the life.
The chief qualification OF an interior
town hotel proprietor in the South
seems to be that he does not know
how to keep hotel.--ED. HERALD.
The reconstruction OF the Southern
States was attended with much fric-
ton. That is not surprising. 1t
worked one of the most radical revolu-
tions OF modern times--more radical
than that forced upon Alsace and Lor-
raine at the close of the Franco-Prus-
sian war-something more than a
change of government. Not only was
the South required to submit to
conuueror, but its political and social
institutions were changed against the
indignant protests of its people. The
bottom rail was literally put on top.
The most violent manifestation of
this friction was the Ku Klux Klan,
an organization which spread over the
South with wonderful rapidity in 1870
and 1871; was guilty of some of the
most atrociously barbarous deeds i'm
IL sttIdd nj "
pressed in the last named year by the
conviction in the United States Courts
of a number of the leaders and their
Imprisonment in Northern peniten-
tiaries. The Ku Klux was the only
one of these organizations that extend
ed throughout a large number of
States, although for several years
afterwards sporadic outbursts of
crime intended to prevent the
negro from exercising his po--
litical rights were denounced
by q portion of the Northern press
under that name. For political ends,
also, exaggerated accounts of these
crimes were published, and sometimes
stories appeared of those that never
occurred.
IL IL concerning SOue Vi thcoc CAa6
gerations and inventions, and OF a
correspondents adventures in investi-
eating reports of them, that this article
is written. The most prolific period
of the year for the prevalence OF the
so-called Ku Klux raids was few
weeks or months preceding an import
ant election. Sometimes there was
actual fire as we'll as smoke. The
white people, impatient under the
prolonged local rule of carpet-baggers
and negroes (Which was, in the nature
OF the case, rarely considerate of the
best interests Of the community, and
was often thoroughly corrupt) engaged
in a system of terrorism and violence
with the unconcealed purpose of pre-
venting a continuation of the obnox-
ious power. Sometimes murder or
whipping, that had no connection
whatever with local or national poll
tics, was made to do duty in rousing
Northern indignation, and sometimes
there was nothing but fiction in the
report.
Alabama was represented to be in a